Town Square

Timing/Synchronization of new light on Alma

Original post made
by Driver, Palo Verde,
on Oct 6, 2012

In the past week since the new light on Alma near Meadow has been functioning, I have been stopped by this light each of 3 times as well as the light on Meadow (twice from Central and once turning from Meadow). This new light appears to not be synchronized with the Meadow light and is activated by motion detectors of traffic leaving the new Alma Plaza. This seems to be wrong to me as how much traffic can there be at present since the stores are not open yet?

Is this going to be changed to synchronize with the Meadow light, or is this going to be a permanent sensor controlled light? Already I can see this becoming another traffic snarl up!

Posted by Jan H.
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Oct 8, 2012 at 12:53 pm

It is ridiculous that there are three traffic lights in a two-block section of Alma. The other two are necessary, there are railroad crossing s there. There is no legitimate reason for this one, except the convenience of the new homeowners and patrons of Starbucks and the new grocery store.

Meanwhile, further north on Alma, we have to wait ten minutes to cross traffic during rush hour.

This mess on Alma is down there with the bottleneck and traffic lights on the Embarcadero side of Town and Country.